Day 200 - 12 Dec 95 - Page 20
1 You will say: No, of course, it does not. That one meal
2 does not make his diet high in fat and, of course, in any
3 event, even if it is high in fat, the evidence falls far
4 short of saying that that leads to a very real risk of
5 cancer of the breast or bowel or heart disease as a
6 result".
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I split that into two, if I may? The
9 second part is a question of evidence, I quite agree,
10 expert scientific evidence.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Does not Professor Crawford come in there if
13 you want to refer to any of the epidemiological evidence?
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: He does come in there, but he only comes in at all
16 if one gets passed the first part of what your Lordship has
17 just said, which is not a question of evidence at all; it
18 is a question of logic or language. If one is talking
19 about a diet, one must presumably mean the whole of what a
20 person eats in the course of a given period -- it maybe a
21 week, it maybe a longer period, it certainly is not a day
22 on the evidence. If that is right, then I am bound to say
23 at the moment I am having difficulty seeing how it could
24 possibly be said that the consumption of a Big Mac itself
25 and large fries, a huge milk shake and, perhaps, an apple
26 pie as well, could make anybody's diet high in fat if it
27 was not already so for reasons beyond the control of
28 McDonald's.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I mean, that is a matter, it seems to me, I
31 would have to turn my mind to (and you may be right at the
32 end of the day), but I am very reluctant -- in fact, I am
33 not going to, Mr. Rampton. I am helped by your argument,
34 but I am not going to lean over backwards to say to the
35 Defendants: "Well, I really do not think that is
36 relevant". I want them to apply their minds to just what
37 further evidence on these issues they really do need in
38 order to feel able to argue their case properly when we get
39 to submissions. I hope they will give it some thought and
40 not say, in effect: "Well, we want to go over it all
41 again".
42
43 I am very reluctant to be over-restrictive about it. Apart
44 from anything else, we now know what the meaning is and if
45 they want to ask a witness: "Well, what do you make of
46 this?" I think they should be allowed to; they may decide
47 they do not want to.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. I understand that is what your Lordship has
50 said. I do not apologise for having made the submission.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, it has been very helpful to me to help me
53 think about where we may be going, but there we are. The
54 other matter -- I will let you read that.
55
56 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it relates to Dr. North so I will come
57 back to it.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The other matter about Professor Crawford,
60 you know my anxiety about him was that there might be some
